Using Grammarly's Word App

We at the Walden University Writing Center recommend that students use Grammarly as an end-of-paper proofreading check. Not all of Word’s features are active while Grammarly is enabled, and for Grammarly to provide the best feedback for you, we recommend you enable it after your draft is complete, just like you use the online version for submitting a complete draft. See more details about our recommendations for using Grammarly after you’ve finished your draft below!

Once you have a draft of your document ready to check (after downloading Grammarly’s app and adding it to Word), click the green Enable Grammarly button in the upper right corner of your Word document.

When you enable Grammarly, a side panel will open on the right side of your Word document. Grammarly will warn you that some features (like auto-save and undo) will not work while you have the app activated. Click “dismiss” on these popups and, if you like, check the “Don’t display this notification in the future” box. Then, the next time you use Grammarly these pop ups will not appear.

Once you’ve dismissed the warnings, make sure your Type is set to General Academic (consult Grammarly Filters and Settings for more information on Types). Then select the filters you’d like Grammarly to look at in the Grammarly tab of your Word toolbar. In the Grammarly tab in the Word toolbar you’ll see categories such as Contextual Spelling, Grammar, Punctuation, Sentence Structure, Style, Vocabulary Enhancement, and Plagiarism. Click on each one you’d like Grammarly to check in your document.

Once you’ve selected the filters you’d like Grammarly to use, read through Grammarly’s comment(s) in the right-hand pane.

Read through your document and make any changes based on Grammarly’s comments. See our Incorporating Feedback page for more information about how to best use the feedback Grammarly provides.

You can make changes in the text of your document as you review Grammarly’s comments, and once you turn Grammarly off, save your draft.

When you’ve finished making your changes, click “Disable Grammarly” in the upper lefthand corner and continue working on your document. Be sure to save your document.

For more about the types of comments Grammarly makes and how to interpret them and incorporate feedback, review our tips in the Incorporating Feedback pages.